Enhancing the barbering experience

Marzel Broderick Ragland, also known as “Z,” employs 

his Z4 Crosscut Razorline Method to shave Quincy Griffin. 

(Photo courtesy of Marzel Broderick Ragland)

MEMPHIS, TN – Marzel Broderick Ragland has been trimming hair professionally for 21 years — in his own barbershop, of course, at 5743 Nanjack Circle in Southeast Memphis. Two other barbers work alongside him.

Z4 Razor, the name of Ragland’s barbershop, was derived from a shaving technique he calls The Z4 Crosscut Razorline Method, which is a system of shaving a particular area in different directions with a straight razor.

“Depending on the area being shaved,” the voice of a woman explains in a video on YouTube, “a series of four different strokes are applied to complete the Z4 method of multi-directional shaving. The four strokes are Freehand, Reverse Freehand, Backhand, and Reverse Backhand.”

While touting the Z4 method of multi-directional shaving, the woman says this: “The technique enhances the barber’s skill level and maximizes client satisfaction,” which has a couple of Ragland’s customers singing his praises.

Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr., a longtime radio personality at WDIA AM 1070, has been singing Ragland’s praises for over a decade. “I first met him when he was over on Shelby Drive,” he says. “He’s very, very customer oriented.”

Stansbury is one of Ragland’s many customers from his A-list of notables. Another one is Bishop Edward H. Stephens Jr., senior pastor of Golden Gate Cathedral. He first met Ragland through his sons. 

“I would hear them talking,” he says, referring to his sons Edward III, Eron, and Evan. “They kept saying ‘Z.’ They were teenagers [or older] then. I asked, ‘Who is Z?’ It wasn’t anything negative. It was always positive.”

Based on the accolades his sons heaped upon Ragland, Stephens thought he would try him after learning his own barber was out of town. “Z is a man that would garner any man’s respect,” he says. “I respected him before I met him.”

Ragland began his foray into barbering when he was a mere 8-year-old lad living with his mother and two brothers in the former Hurt Village housing project before the area was razed and transformed into Uptown Memphis.

“I was just trying to stay out of trouble,” he says. 

Hurt Village had been a hotspot for troubled youth, and drugs had ensnared too many of them. Ragland was there in the midst but rebuffed that crowd. So, he didn’t succumb to the lure or their mindset of waywardness.

Barbering was Ragland’s way out of pending trouble. His mother had owned a pair of clippers, he recalls, and used it to cut his hair. His classmates mocked him and an altercation ensued. After his mother laid hands to his backside before his peers, he apologized. 

Ragland thought he was in trouble again after fetching the clippers from his mother’s room to trim his brother’s hair. Instead, he recalls her saying, “I’m going to give you the case, the comb, the guard, everything. As long as you stay true to these clippers, you’ll never go hungry.”

Since then, Ragland has never looked back and continues to forge ahead with a deeper understanding of his mother’s enduring words and those who mentored him. Now he’s giving back to the young men and women who could not escape the lure of criminal activity.

“I think that’s very good to take an interest in young people—especially young men,” says Stansbury. “He always talks about them when we’re in the shop. He’s just a nice Christian gentleman.”

Ragland often steers the conversation toward mentoring youth and teaching them about the vicissitudes of life. For 15 years, he’s worked inside penitentiaries and juvenile facilities cutting their hair.

“I cut their hair and mentor them as well. And I have my instructor’s license,” he says proudly. “I feel like I can be a great asset. I’m just trying to do my part.”

“Z is a cutting-edge gentleman,” Stephens says. “I can sum him up as authentic manhood.”

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